The Kirkus Prize is one of the richest literary awards in the world, with a prize of $50,000 bestowed annually to authors of fiction, nonfiction and young readers’ literature. It was created to celebrate the 81 years of discerning, thoughtful criticism Kirkus Reviews has contributed to both the publishing industry and readers at large. Books that earned the Kirkus Star with publication dates between November 1, 2014, and October 31, 2015 (see FAQ for exceptions), are automatically nominated for the 2015 Kirkus Prize, and the winners will be selected on October 15, 2015, by an esteemed panel composed of nationally respected writers and highly regarded booksellers, librarians and Kirkus critics.

"A necessary, well-curated anthology that shows the singular political power of speculative fiction."

The feminist superstars of science fiction, fantasy, and horror dismantle and reassemble gender's many implications and iterations in the newest anthology edited by the VanderMeers (The Time Traveler's Almanac, 2014, etc.).Read full book review >

"A novel with a madcap premise and appealing characters that does not quite fulfill its comedic promise."

Roufa's debut novel follows the misadventures of a clone of Abraham Lincoln and a clone of Marilyn Monroe as they attempt to evade government agents and figure out what it means to claim their own identities.
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Crowder's (Cobalt City Blues, etc.) sci-fi novel reimagines characters from an array of literary sources—from the Greek classics to Charles Dickens—as outcasts in a gritty, present-day London.Read full book review >

"A thoroughly engrossing and involving entry that no series fan will want to miss."

Fourth in the independently intelligible series (A Plunder of Souls, 2014, etc.) about magic ("conjuring") in the turbulent and increasingly rebellious pre-Revolutionary Boston of 1770.Read full book review >

"Definitely worth a try for Turtledove fans and armchair warriors in general."

Alternate-world warrior extraordinaire Turtledove (Last Orders, 2014, etc.) delivers the opening barrage of a new speculative conflict: What if President Harry Truman had ordered nuclear weapons to be used in the Korean War?Read full book review >

No one would accuse V. I. Warshawski of backing down from a fight, but there are a few she’d be happy to avoid. High on that list is tangling with Chicago political bosses. Yet that’s precisely what she ends up doing when she responds to Frank Guzzo’s plea for help in Brush Back, the latest thriller from bestselling author Sara Paretsky. For six stormy weeks back in high school, V.I. thought she was in love with Frank. He broke up with her, she went off to college, he started driving trucks for Bagby Haulage. She forgot about him until the day his mother was convicted of bludgeoning his kid sister, Annie, to death. Stella Guzzo was an angry, uncooperative prisoner and did a full 25 years for her daughter’s murder. Newly released from prison, Stella is looking for exoneration, so Frank asks V.I. for help. “Paretsky, who plots more conscientiously than anyone else in the field, digs deep, then deeper, into past and present until all is revealed,” our reviewer writes.
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FEATURED FICTION AUTHOR

When J. Ryan Stradal set out to write the book he wanted to read, he didn’t consider his current home for its setting. Instead, he took a hiatus from his job as an L.A.-based supervising producer on shows like Storage Wars and Deadliest Catch to revisit the communities ...

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